FirstEnergy says theft happened at building outside Beaver County Nuclear Power Station perimeter

A man who used to work as a contractor at a western Pennsylvania nuclear power plant has been charged with stealing more than 1,400 pounds of scrap copper from an outlying storage building at the plant, and having his mother sell it.

Online court records don't list attorneys for 35-year-old Joseph Plum Jr. or 56-year-old Darlene Johnson, both of New Brighton. Neither have listed phones and both are due in court for a preliminary hearing Thursday.

A FirstEnergy spokeswoman says the copper was stolen from a building used to store construction material and scrap outside the secure perimeter of the company's Beaver County Nuclear Power Station in Shippingport.